


Would You Know My Name

by VanillaMostly



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Family Fluff, Future Fic, Gen, much needed happy endings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-23 09:57:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11400216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VanillaMostly/pseuds/VanillaMostly
Summary: Would you know my name, if I saw you in heaven? ~Eric Clapton3 reunion future AUs with the Stark family





	Would You Know My Name

**Author's Note:**

> waiting for season 7 of GOT got me back in the A Song of Ice and Fire groove ;)

**i. a forgotten face**

The dragon queen was as beautiful as they said. She arrived on her silver, no crown on her head. The dragons flanking her retinue, sweeping their great wings in the sky, were proof enough of her claim. The queen wore only a white lionskin pelt, but she showed no signs of shivering or gooseflesh. Sansa wondered if there was fire in the queen's blood keeping her warm.

In the courtyard of the ruined castle, Sansa bent the knee. Her men and women knelt with her, small number of them as it was. Those who hadn't perished from famine and war had long since fled south.

"Welcome to Winterfell, Your Grace."

"Lady Sansa." The dragon queen appraised her for a long moment. "Yes. I've heard many things about you."

"Good things or bad things, Your Grace?"

Sansa was almost surprised at her own forwardness. She looked up at Daenerys Stormborn, the True Dragon, as they all called her. Up close, the dragon queen did not look as intimidating. She looked like she really was only a few years older than Sansa herself.

Wind blew at Daenerys's pale hair, blending it into the snow, blowing it over her violet eyes. "How about I let them tell you?"

With a smile that Sansa couldn't decipher, the dragon queen turned her silver mare to the side. Her army slowly parted in silence. Sansa squinted into the wind and snow, as two figures emerged on horseback through the gate.

Sansa felt her jaw slacken. One of them was an all too familiar face. The scar was just as she remembered, long and garish across his nose. He had become thinner, gaunt and worn, but he looked oddly happier. "You look as if you see a ghost, my lady," said Tyrion Lannister, coming to a stop beside his queen.

"My lord..."

"No need to call me that, dear Sansa. Our kind, gracious _khaleesi_ here," he said cheerfully, "has annulled our marriage per my request. You may thank me later."

Sansa did not know quite what to say.

"Well?" asked Tyrion, but he was not speaking to Sansa, instead to the figure behind him, a slender, cloaked soldier with a thin blade at his hips. "Aren't you going to say something? You've waited long enough, I should think."

The soldier on the horse had his head bowed, hood obscuring his face. His body language was strange, Sansa thought. Tense and curled up, like he wanted to run away. Frightened or angry, or perhaps both.

"If you're not going to announce yourself, I will," said Tyrion. He turned to Sansa, bowing in exaggerated courtesy. "Lady Sansa, may I present—"

"Shut up, Imp!"

The voice was high and clear. Not a man's voice, but a woman. A girl. There was only one girl Sansa knew who spoke with as much ferocity and rawness. Sansa was glad she was already kneeling in the snow because at that moment, she couldn't feel her limbs. _Oh, gods. Oh gods oh gods oh gods._

"Arya," whispered Sansa; tears wet her cheek and began to freeze there, and as if in a dream, the soldier's hood fell back to reveal tangled dark hair and grey, Stark eyes... A face Sansa had not seen for four long years, and so different from what Sansa remembered, yet she could recognize anywhere. An anguished cry split the air, and faster than a blink her sister had leapt from her horse and rushed into Sansa's arms.

They couldn't hold each other tightly enough, unable to believe it _was_ real and not a dream. Arya was shaking; when she pulled back she opened her mouth, her lashes tinged with snow, eyes bright, and said— 

"I don't remember why I hated you."

Sansa laughed and cried, clutching her sister. They had so much to tell each other, so much... but there would be time. Finally, there would be time.

* * *

 

**ii. a new turn**

"Leave. I want to be alone," Jon commanded as soon as he heard the door open.

He didn't bother to turn around, which was why the voice that answered startled him.

"Jon... please."

It was first a jolt to hear his long-lost sister—or _cousin_ (he tried to wrap his mind around it, but found that he still couldn't)—and an even greater jolt to hear her call him by his name. No one had done that for a long time. It was always _my lord_ or _my prince_ or _Son of Fire_ , none of which were him. He was just Jon. Jon Snow, no matter what anyone said.

More than anything, though, it was a jolt to hear Sansa say _please_. Sansa, who used to look at him with cool, distant pride, or as much as a little girl could manage in trying to emulate her mother. He turned to see her standing at the door, lamplight dimly litting her features. Her beauty was jarring because of how much it reminded him of Catelyn. But she was even more beautiful than Lady Stark had been.

Jon nodded, two rough jerks of his head.

Sansa moved into the room, skirts rustling softly. She set the lamp on the windowsill and took a seat next to him on the bed. The two of them stared out at the dark void beyond the Wall, as though fascinated.

"Are you cold?" asked Jon, realizing how lightly Sansa was dressed. He stood to close the drapes, but Sansa reached out to stop him. She paused just short of touching his arm.

"I like the cold," she said.

Jon sat back down. More silence.

He tried to get over his nervousness in the silence that stretched, but it was difficult. He was never very close to Sansa back when things had still been normal; if this were Arya next to him, Jon would surely know what to do... ruffle her hair and call her little sister ( _because she was his little sister, she would always be_ ). But this was Sansa. His family, the first of his family he had seen in years and years, yet in reality she was a stranger. If he had never truly understood the young Sansa, he had little idea on what to make of the older Sansa. The Sansa who had always been a perfect little lady was now a flawless mask. They had greeted each other formally and courteously under watchful eyes earlier that day. She had not sought for a tearful reunion, and Jon couldn't blame her. He had been her bastard half-brother, no more. This must be as strange to her as it was to him.

The thought made him glance at her sideways. Right on cue, Sansa did the same at the same time. Without thinking, Jon laughed, and Sansa smiled, a touch shyly.

Conversation flowed a little easier after that.

Sansa asked him to tell his story, and Jon told her. Of his black brothers, of Ygritte, of the wildlings waging battle on Castle Black, of Stannis, of Jon's unexpected rise to Lord Commander, of his dance with death, of his time in Ghost, and of the red woman who brought him back. He held back from telling her about Howland Reed and the unfathomable things he had said; if Sansa noticed ( _and surely she's heard, everyone has_ ), she didn't show it.

When it was Sansa's turn she told him of her story in calm and neutrality, as if she was reciting the history of Westeros. Jon clenched his fists tighter and tighter as she told of her time in the red keep, of Joffrey, of Ned's death ( _I was so naive, so foolish,_ she said matter-of-factly, _I fed him to the lions)_ , of Cersei's control, of her marriage to the Imp, of her escape to the Vale, of her life then as Alayne Stone, of her second marriage to Harrold Hardyng, of her widowhood, of Brienne finding her, of her eventual trek to the north.

She held back certain things from Jon, too; he knew because he had heard tales as well, of the mysterious demise of Petyr Baelish. When Sansa spoke of him, all she said was, "He loved my mother well." Jon did not miss that she dropped her gaze for a second as she said so.

Jon didn't press, however. It was quite clear that Sansa had as many dark points in her past she preferred to hide as Jon did. She didn't have to disclose them; the knowledge that she did have them made her already less strange to Jon.

By the time they stopped talking, dawn was approaching, and with it, the coming battle. The glow of red over the horizon was like candlelight. Jon wondered if this would be their last dawn... Or perhaps just _his_.

"Jon?"

He looked at Sansa. She was smiling at him with a sad smile, one that rendered her face much older than it should be. _She is only fourteen, and I seventeen._ Yet he felt as old as the old gods themselves.

"When this is all over," said Sansa, "let us go back to Winterfell. Let us look for Arya, Rickon, and Bran."

Like chisels of ice cracking from the Wall, Sansa's mask fell. The hope in her shining blue eyes was too naked, too painful to look at, but Jon found he couldn't look away.

He took her hand. His voice came out hoarse. "Yes... Let's."

* * *

 

**iii. an old dream**

Arya couldn't see what was so interesting about the little lonely hill that had Nymeria and the pack suddenly worked up. Nymeria even ignored Arya's attempt to slip into her skin, breaking into a run like she'd smelled a tasty bone. Arya eyed the unimpressive-looking pile of rocks and stone, doubting there would be game or food to be found there, but she grudgingly followed. She indulged her wolf way more than she cared to admit.

It was quiet here, in the way that emptiness was quiet. At least that was good—although she had only seen a handful of people since reaching the riverlands, anyway; _living_ people, that was. She saw a far larger number of corpses. Buried under the snow, limbs here and there, or else hanging in the leafless trees, most of their flesh already rotted away. The riverlands were deserted, and Arya wasn't surprised. The last time she had been here, war was just raging, and wars had a tendency to take all life with them.

When she got to the top of the hill, she could tell that this place used to be a castle of some sort. Arya didn't have the roughest idea which castle. Maester Luwin's geography lessons seemed an eon ago, from another lifetime. And it _was_ another lifetime. One so faraway, sometimes memories from one of the faces she'd worn felt closer and felt more real.

But thinking about the past was something a stupid child might do and she was no child. She sat down on one of the cracked stones and thought of the future instead. She didn't plan on staying in this wasteland forever. The smallfolk she had passed two days prior said the silver queen hadn't executed the lioness yet, but it was only a matter of time. Arya didn't get to kill Joffrey and she didn't get to kill the Mountain... She wasn't going to let someone else snatch up Cersei, too.

First things first, though. She couldn't leave the riverlands just yet. She still had unfinished business here.

Twirling Needle in one hand, the other propped on her knee, supporting her chin, Arya calculated. The Twins shouldn't be far. The peasants had said it would be a fortnight, but they had assumed she would be traveling by wagon, stopping at inns for warm food and a warm bed. She bent down, picked up a tree branch, and began to sketch in the snow. Her recollections of the Twins were unfortunately vague... it had been such a brief visit last time, but _oh_ , this time would be different...

_Snap._

Arya was on her feet in a flash. "Who goes there?"

Only howling wind answered her.

_Nym?_ Again, the direwolf was unresponsive, but Arya could sense Nymeria's presence in the area, seemingly content and unhurt. Arya didn't allow herself much relief, though. She stayed in her spot and closed her eyes, _feeling_ for her surroundings rather than seeing. A valuable skill learned when she had been a blind no one.

A woman was approaching... Her steps slow, stiff. As she walked, she dragged her cloak along the ground. Arya wrapped a finger around Needle's hilt. One flick, she knew with her eyes still closed, and Needle would drive itself into the woman's temple. But she'd wait. She didn't sense bloodlust from this woman... not yet.

The woman stopped when she was about five paces away. There was a strange sound coming from her. It almost sounded like sobs, but Arya heard no wails, no wet gulps. Only gasps for air.

Arya opened her eyes, and her breath caught.

Her first thought was that it was a wight or a white shadow—the smallfolk spoke plenty about them, though it was evident their knowledge only came from hearsay. This was an old crone, her hair limp and white, her face a dreadful mass of gaping flesh and moldy skin; and _death_ , she reeked of death. _She can't be alive,_ thought Arya, which meant she had to be a wight, but...

_Can wights cry?_

The crone was not shedding tears, in truth—those were scars that ran down her cheeks—but the way her shoulders hunched forward, shaking, her hands gripping her chest... No mummer could have made crying as real. Then there were the eyes. _Wights have blue eyes_ , Arya remembered the smallfolk saying, _eyes that glow, eyes that don't belong on any human._ These eyes didn't look human for certain, two dark pits, rimmed in crusted red—but—but they held too much pain...

_Can wights hurt, inside?_

Arya found herself taking one step forward, then another. The crone bent her head, folding into herself, clutching her grey scarf and cloak tighter. From wherever she had gone, Nymeria materialized, padding over quietly. She laid at the crone's feet, folded her paws, and looked at Arya as if to say, _What will you do?_

Yes, thought Arya. What will I do?

She was close enough to see every ghastly detail of the crone's hair and face, the mottled decay of her hands. She was close enough to hear the crone's silent weeps.

"It's me," said Arya, salt on her lips. "Don't... don't be afraid."

Gently, she placed her hand on the crone's arm, removing her hold on the front of her cloak. Gently, Arya unraveled the grey wool scarf. Gently, she traced her fingers over where a blade had cut, deep and hard and cruel. The crone flinched, as if remembering.

"We will make them pay," Arya vowed.

The crone shook her head forcefully once, then twice.

"But why?" Arya sounded stubborn and petulant to her own ears. How many times had she said that, before? _But why can't a girl be a knight? Why do I have to be a lady? Why is Sansa always better at everything?_

The crone's touch was cold, but Arya didn't mind. The clammy, brittle hand brushed Arya's hair back from her forehead. Like it used to, once. Saltwater stained Arya's lips, dribbled down her chin.

Her mother held the remnants of her throat together as she spoke. One word, and how true it rang, this word Arya had craved in her heart forever, no matter whose face she wore, whose name she carried.

"Home."

_Home. Winterfell. We'll go home._


End file.
